Paterson and Dolan back the idea of a compromise site - farther away from the site of the 9/11 attack - for the project that has ignited a national firestorm.

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But the sitdown will be about lowering the temperature rather than picking a new address or presenting an alternate plan, a source said: "They both want to help ease the tensions. ... The governor has said his primary goal in all of this is to bring people together on the issue."

Paterson spokesman Morgan Hook confirmed the two will discuss the controversial project and "what they can do together." He did not go into detail.

"We first want to meet with all the stakeholders [in the project] who matter. ... We will meet, and we will do what is right for everyone," she told ABC's "This Week" Sunday.

Former Gov. George Pataki joined the chorus of politicians, mostly Republicans, who have denounced the proposed center as an affront to those killed several blocks away on 9/11.

"Why does it have to be at the World Trade Center site?" he asked. "They haven't answered that question, and I don't think they can because I question whether or not, in fact, it is being constructed in the name of tolerance and outreach."

The planned community center and mosque is actually two blocks away - not at Ground Zero. When asked how far from Ground Zero would be appropriate, Pataki punted.

"It's a bigger question than that," he said. "We don't know the funding, we don't know the views of those behind it."

"I'm a big believer in freedom of religion, but I think the mosque being in that location is absolutely wrong," Trump said.

Meanwhile, Rauf came under withering new attack from critics who seized on his past words.

Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh and Tea Party blogger Pamela Geller distributed recordings of the imam telling an Australian audience in 2005 that the U.S. has "more Muslim blood on its hands than Al Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims."

Their spin was that he was declaring America worse than Al Qaeda, but Rauf's defenders said that's not true. They said the tape was edited and incomplete. They contend the imam was detailing the misery caused by the U.S. boycott of Iraq before the war - and America's funding of hard-line Muslim dictators who have brutalized their people.